From the cover of The Economist, August 19th 2017.
Trumpspeak (fl. 2015- ) is that strange form of English that President Trump and some of his minions use.
Guidelines:
- Abuse, don’t use English.
- Confuse: Use words like how a squid squirts ink – to hide and confuse. Therefore:
- Lie. Even when everyone can tell you are lying. The truth is not your friend. Post-truth is.
- Assert. Do not argue or reason or defend. Be fact-free. Your saying makes it so, especially if you:
- Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. “No obstruction! No collusion!”, “Crooked Hillary”, “Make America Great Again”, etc.
- Contradict yourself: see #2, but:
- Never admit fault. Instead project your faults onto others. Or just bad mouth them.
- Use simple language, like something a ten-year-old could read and understand.
- Tell it like it is: Be openly racist and misogynistic. Have little patience for political correctness. But:
- Avoid the words vulnerable, entitlement, diversity, transgender, fetus, evidence-based, science-based, climate change, refugees, nation of immigrants, free from discrimination, quality homes, inclusive communities, democratic, peaceful, just, legal, transparent (words that government departments have been learning to avoid under Trump).
- Be hyperbolic: “the least racist”, “the best words”, “the biggest witch hunt in history”, invasion, tremendous, etc.
- Belittle: Make up and use insulting names for those you do not like – Little Rocket Man, Failing New York Times, Crooked Hillary, etc.
- Seek publicity, even bad publicity.
In the US in 2019, this stuff looks idiotic on the left, but on the right it works all too well.
Some words and phrases:
- alternative facts – if you do not like the facts as they are, make up your own. Also known as gaslighting.
- America First – America alone.
- bigly – what people in some parts of the US seem to hear when Trump says “big-league”.
- deep state – the parts of the government that do not believe in dictatorship.
- enemy of the people – a free press.
- fake news – news reports that make Trump look bad.
- hysteria – the only possible reason someone would not like Trump. The main cause of fake news.
- law and order – for Black and Brown people, like the Central Park 5, but not for Trump and his minions.
- locker room talk – boasting about sexual assault.
- Make America Great Again (MAGA) – make White America great again.
- Make America Safe – from Muslim terrorists, but not from violent White gunmen.
- perjury trap – to swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
- pro-life – life is valuable and precious for the first nine months after conception. After that experts disagree. Black and Brown lives after birth clearly do not matter to the pro-life movement.
- safe and sanitary – does not necessarily include giving caged children soap, toothbrushes or beds.
- seeking asylum – a terrible crime.
- she’s not my type – a big reason not to rape a woman.
- shithole countries – where Black and Brown people come from.
- sons of bitches – those who protest because they think Black lives matter.
- tender-age facilities – concentration camps for children under age 13, most of whom were separated from parents seeking asylum.
- very fine people – includes people who march while burning torches and chanting “Jews will not replace us!”
- yuge – how some New Yorkers say “huge”.
– Abagond, 2019.
Update (July 10th): Did a post on “very fine people” and updated the post accordingly.
Source: TomDispatch (2018) for the words avoided by government departments.
See also:
- Whitespeak
- New York English
- Donald Trump
- propaganda techniques:
- The Republican bubble
- How to think like a Trump supporter
- tribal epistemology
- Fox News – straight-up Trump propaganda since 2016
- The Trumpification of the US – showing how the language was changed on a government website
- Orwell
- post-truth
- reading level – Trump speaks at a fourth-grade reading level (ages 9 and 10). Most US politicians talk like they have been to high school (ages 15 to 18).
- political arguments
Abagond 
“No collusion, No obstruction” as he sits on the toilet tweeting with his tiny unwashed orange hands.
2.We are going to have the “best” people. Even though everyone in his cabinet is inept and unqualified for the jobs they do.
His use of the word “Bigley.” Not sure about the correct spelling of this stupid word that comes out his limited vocabulary.
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“She’s not my type “ So this implies that he is a sexual predator because he has a type.
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“The I Word” Because of his sick sociopathic and narcissistic brain will not allow him to say or think of the word Impeach.
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“Very fine people on both sides.”
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The ‘very fine people” is a great example of what Scott Adams describes as two movies, one screen as is much of what Abagond talks about in this article. Abagond even has “includes neo-nazis” attached to the phrase even though in the very press conference that the comment was made it, Trump took multiple opportunities to condemn what happened in Charlottesville.
“As I said on — remember, Saturday — we condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence. It has no place in America.”
“Well, I think the driver of the car is a disgrace to himself, his family, and this country. And that is — you can call it terrorism. You can call it murder. You can call it whatever you want. I would just call it as the fastest one to come up with a good verdict. That’s what I’d call it. Because there is a question: Is it murder? Is it terrorism? And then you get into legal semantics. The driver of the car is a murderer. And what he did was a horrible, horrible, inexcusable thing.”
“Those people — all of those people – excuse me, I’ve condemned neo-Nazis. I’ve condemned many different groups.”
“And you had people — and I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists — because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists. Okay? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly.”
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2019/apr/26/context-trumps-very-fine-people-both-sides-remarks/
https://blog.dilbert.com/2018/06/10/why-democrats-hear-a-secret-racist-dog-whistle-and-republicans-dont/
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@ Brian
Thank you. I will be doing a post on “very fine people” and update this post if necessary.
I did a post on the “two movies, one screen” thing, only I had a different name for it:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2014/12/26/wilfully-obtuse/
That post by Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) that you linked to is an excellent example of how an otherwise intelligent person can fail to see what is right in front of his eyes if his ideological commitments are strong enough. Adams bends over backwards time and time again to not see Trump’s racism. What does Trump have to do for him to see it? Build gas ovens? Even Roseanne’s tweet was not racist to him.
Adams, to maintain his belief in a non-racist Trump, believes in mythical categories:
That is almost a contradiction in terms.
But worse than that, Adams believes that:
If only that were true!!! Then maybe Trump would shut down the border camps or at least run them with fewer human rights violations so as not to lose support from his voter base.
The camps are glaring proof of how racist Trump is, that alarmists like me were right about him (and therefore his base), more right than we wanted to be.
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Donald Trump ain’t shit.
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That Economists Cover pretty much tells the truth about who Trump is. A white supremacist.
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From the Dilbert blog link Movie 2 scene that is supposed to explain why Trump supporters don’t see Trump as racist, I found the one for Judge Curiel to be very racist, ie,
So, for Trump supporters, they see the judge as likely to be biased against Trump because the media has framed Trump as being racist against Mexicans, so this judge with Mexican heritage has to bend over backwards NOT to appear biased against a non-racist Trump?
And Movie 2 people do not see that as being racist? I find that kind of reasoning to be racist as sh_!t.
The Birtherism thing too – McCain was born in the Panama Canal and Obama was born in a US state, and has ancestors that were Americans going back many many generations. Why wasn’t McCain’s nationality ever questioned? Even if Obama had been born in Kenya, he would still be a natural born US citizen just as Ted Cruz was. There is no reason whatsoever to explain why a birtherism conspiracy would have been spun. I think it is sad that Obama felt compelled to provide his long form birth record. Why wasn’t Trump compelled to do that? His mother was born a foreigner outside the US.
I am curious if we did a study of Movie 1 and Movie 2 people, how many movie 2 people would be white people who possess core beliefs that
– Americans are white people (at least “real” Americans are)
– English is the representative language of the US (or even “original” language of the US)
– Mexican-Americans are not of American “stock”, even if their ancestors predated the settling of Jamestown
– Trump is “more” American than Obama
– Jim Crow was abolished over 50 years ago and has no more effect today
– Slavery was abolished over 150 years ago and definitely has no effect today.
– Chinese-Americans are by and large all recent immigrants and played no role in the building of the country
– The Japanese American WWII internment camps were not concentration camps; only Nazis did that. The camps were set up for their protection, and anyway it was still OK as the US govt as the right to do that and we just have to be sure that we had no spies in the US.
– US was not that populated when Europeans arrived, and most of the natives died off because European diseases. What unfolded could not be helped and had nothing to do with what white people did (sorry, what “Americans” did).
I have been around those Movie 2 people all my life. They indeed do not see how all those premises are racists as 5h1t. So, none of them are racist.
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@ jefe
Wow. I did not even know that Trump’s mother was foreign-born. I knew about Cruz and McCain and, of course, Obama. I was, though, waiting for Trump to (not) be compelled to produce his long-form birth certificate.
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@ jefe
Like Scott Adams, about half the country does not think Trump is racist, which means they are pretty much like him or worse. Thus Movie 2. And yes, very few of them think they are racist. Heritage not hate! As those very fine people would say.
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Both Trump’s mother and his wife were foreign born immigrants, and his mother is still a UK national (which presumes that Trump was born a UK national and still is unless he has officially renounced it, since both UK and US recognize jus sanguinis and allow dual nationality.)
Trump’s father Fred’s parents were both from Germany, as well as his father’s older sister, and since Fred’s mother was still a citizen at the time of Fred’s birth, presumably Fred was also born a German citizen (or at least eligible for it). Fred, Sr. was stripped of his German citizenship just before Fred, Jr. was born. As far as I know, Fred Jr. never renounced his eligibility for German citizenship. .
Obama was born a dual citizen of the US and UK when he was born (as Kenya was a British colony, and was grandfathered into Kenyan citizenship at age 2 as his father became a Kenyan citizeh. But Obama, Jr. automatically lost his eligibility for Kenyan citizenship at age 23 as he did not renounce his US citizenship nor take an official oath as a Kenyan citizen.
(https://www.factcheck.org/2008/08/obamas-kenyan-citizenship/)
As far as I could find, Trump has never lost or renounced his UK citizenship, and tthe links I could find on the topic suggest that he is still a UK national.
So, Obama lost his dual nationality at age 23, and was only a US citizen after that.
Donald Trump has always been a dual national.
So, how do Movie 2 people justify, on a non-racial basis, the question of whether Obama was eligible to be a US president on a birtherism basis, and whether Trump is the one we really have to worry about as he still is technically a dual national (and potentially is a subject of a foreign country).
Why have the Movie 1 people not required Trump to officially renounce his UK nationality?
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These sick sycophants and lovers of this monster is nothing but a political cult.
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Aren’t Melania and her family immigrants? But that’s because they are white.
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I seem to recall every President in the WH has had a dog. I noticed there is no dog in this current administration. That might be a good thing because that would be cruelty to an innocent animal.
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It’s ironic how Trump wanted to execute five innocent young teens for raping a white woman and they had their lives ruined. And how 22 women have accused Trump of being a sexual predator and he still was able to be put in the White House. How is it that he is above the law, when previous Presidents like Nixon, and Clinton had to suffer the consequences of their actions? How is it that Americans are okay with this corrupt administration?
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Update: Did a post on “very fine people” and updated this post accordingly.
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2019/07/09/very-fine-people/
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On the news Trump was referred to as “The Consoler In Chief “ How can he be that when he has no compassion.
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@ Mary
Part of what makes Trump seem like a ten-year-old is his lack of normal empathy. AOC is way younger than him in calendar years but is old enough to be his mother in terms of knowledge and emotional and moral maturity.
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@ Mary Burrell
I saw this article yesterday comparing Trump with “the former consoler in chief”
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/08/obama-is-still-acting-like-hes-the-president/595540/
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Trump takes a Sharpie to a map and makes himself a meteorologist and makes dumb statements about Hurricane Dorian and Alabama. Everything he said was not true. Where were his advisors? Were were the real meteorologist?
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“Were were the real meteorologist?”
Apparently being threatened into backing the outdated/uninformed statements of Trump. https://www.google.com/search?tbm=nws&q=Wilbur+Ross+threatens+NOAA
He cancelled a trip to monitor the hurricane and then couldn’t be bothered to actually monitor the hurricane. Embellished an outdated prediction and then silenced those with facts so that he could present his embellishment in the form of a Sharpie-enhanced outdated graphic. Classic Trump. If it won’t go away, he just needs to do something else ridiculous and Sharpie-gate will become a distant memory.
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